/ˈfəʊməʊ/ noun informal: Anxiety that an exciting or interesting event may currently be happening elsewhere. Fear of missing out.

December 25, 2018

[PL & ENG] Co ma wspólnego włoskie Bari z Polską i po co w ogóle jechać na południe Włoch? Weekend w Apulii. What does Italian Bari have to do with Poland and why should one go to the south of Italy at all? Weekend in Apulia.

Florence, Venice, Milan – most of us know or at least recall these Italian cities. Covered with white powder Dolomites or sunny and wine flowing Tuscany are the directions often chosen by tourists. In fact, everything that is north of Rome is somehow more popular in Italy. Actually, the division into an economically prosperous north and the less successful south is an ongoing issue in Italian economics and politics. Indeed, it is difficult not to resist the vastness of the Vatican or the incredible architecture of Bologna. However, sometimes it is worth going to a slightly less tourist-promoted area and discover something completely different and new. Places that haven’t overtake Instagram yet. That’s exactly what I found in Puglia and its surroundings.

Puglia is a region located in the south of Italy with a coastline that reaches about 800 km. It is a lot. Only Sardinia and Sicily have more access to the sea in Italy! For comparison, the length of the Polish coastline is 770 km with the Zalew Szczeciński and the Vistula Lagoon. It’s easy to remember where Puglia is on the map because it is that area which creates the heel of the famous ‘Italian shoe’. The capital of the region is Bari, where my trip began. More precisely, it was at the airport named after Karol Wojtyla. Giving a name to the Bari airport with the real name of the Polish Pope certainly creates a bond between Poland and Italy, but that’s not what I meant by the question in the title of this post. The bond I am writing about was created 500 years ago, on April 18, 1518. It was then that Princess Bari married the Polish King Zygmunt Stary, at the same time becoming the Queen of Poland. Who are we talking about? Queen Bona, of course. The majority of people probably associate her with so-called ‘wloszczyzna’ and the already overthrown myth that it was she who brought to Poland a lot of previously unknown vegetables like cauliflower, cabbage or carrots. It turns out that the Poles knew these vegetables even before Bona took the throne. It is true that the queen brought to Poland huge amounts of Italian fruits and vegetables but apart from her, hardly anybody was eager to eat them. It seems that Bona didn’t manage to convince even her own husband to her tastes… She did contribute though to the consolidation of the vocabulary borrowed from her homeland. And this is where ‘wloszczyzna’ came from. As for the Italian recipes, they only became popular two centuries later.

Bona is said to be quite a controversial figure and to be not very liked. Unlike her predecessors, she was openly getting involved in politics, which probably annoyed many men who were not accustomed to intelligent women who had their own opinions. Bona is accused of instilling intrigues and bribery in Poland. I’d like to challenge that. Hadn’t we have that before her rule? The queen was clever, ruthless towards the mighty, prone to getting offended and morbid outbursts of anger that can be easily imagined (if you’ve ever met an Italian man or woman) and justified with the Italian temperament. Liked or not, it can not be denied that she was an ambitious, active and very economical ruler.

That’s the relationship between Bari and Poland that I wanted to talk about. When it comes to the city itself, in terms of tourism it is not particularly special, but it’s pleasant enough and makes a pretty good base to the surrounding towns, some of which are truly amazing.

It is still quite unknown Italian town located at the bottom of the ‘shoe’, on the edge of the canyon carved by the river Gravina. Matera is one of the oldest inhabited towns in the world that our ancestors settled already in Paleolithic. Today considered as World Heritage Site by UNESCO but 70 years ago, due to appalling poverty and unimaginable living conditions, was denounced as the ‘Shame of Italy’. Fortunately, present local administration is more tourism-oriented and promotes this small town. During our stay there was no shortage of tourists and in 2019 the city will be the European Capital of Culture. Come to Matera to visit so-called Sassi – habitations dug into the calcareous rock (usually not bigger than little caves), which became the foundation for further construction of the complex structures of the town. The view is really amazing.

A place that amazes in Puglia is Alberobello. The town is famous for its unusual architecture, namely unique houses, so-called ‘Trulli’. These are round houses with cone-shaped roofs made of stones. In the past, limestone slates were used for the construction of trulli, which were laid without cement mortar. The underlying reason for this strange construction was not laziness or the desire to save money on cement. Trulli were considered temporary houses, and as such there was no obligation to pay taxes for them. Taxes had to be paid for newly built houses made of cement and stone. Trulli are scattered around Puglia in smaller and larger quantities, while the Alberobello phenomenon is that there is a whole cluster of these characteristic buildings. There are about 1,400 of them! The end of the 19th century was the golden age for trulli. Due to the fact that the houses have proved to be extremely durable and have survived to this day, we can not only appreciate their visual uniqueness, but also rent them for the holidays.

W Alberobello, na szczycie stożka trullo, znajduje się zwykle ręcznie obrobiony pinakla z piaskowca (pinnacolo), który może być jednym z wielu wzorów – dysk, piłka, stożek, miska, wielościan lub ich kombinacja, która ma być podpisem kamieniarza, który zbudował trullo. / In Alberobello, at the top of the trullo cone, there is usually a hand-made pinnacle, which can be one of many designs – disk, ball, cone, bowl, polyhedron or a combination of them that is supposed to be the signature of the stonemason who built the trullo

Further to the south of Alberobello, among the olive groves emerges Ostuni, the White City of Puglia, situated on a hill at an altitude of 218 m above sea level. The town steals the heart with a maze of narrow streets decorated with white buildings and bottled green shutters and doors. Sunset viewed from the top of the hill looks insane.

Typing the word ‘Puglia’ in the search engine, one of the first pictures that appeared on my monitor among the results was a tiny beach sheltered by high cliffs disappearing in the turquoise water of the bay. This beach is located in Polignano a Mare. The view is really wonderful but I would suggest to stop at admiring the view because swimming in the water surrounded by plastic bottles and other rubbish is not the most pleasant. Believe me because I checked myself.

It is pleasant to swim in the waters of the Torre Guaceto beach located halfway between Ostuni and Brindisi. You can watch the underwater life of colorful fish and occasionally even coral reefs. It’s a perfect place for snorkeling! Unfortunately, I don’t have any photos from that place! 😦

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